


Moon Cycles

by hoodwinks



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, like honestly it couldn't get angstier, nothing like an angsty teenage drama to finish out the night amirite ladies, so angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 06:29:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14868509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoodwinks/pseuds/hoodwinks
Summary: Sirius could drown in the way Remus made him feel, but he knew that he would never be able to speak a word of it. He waned and waxed with the moon, fading into darkness from blinding light. It would not work forever, but it would have to do for now.





	Moon Cycles

**Author's Note:**

> I tried a different style for this! I was feeling really angsty so this is what you get! There are some light descriptions of homophobia (both internal and external) and some descriptions of abuse, but nothing is graphic. So, without further ado, here is moon child Sirius pining (quite angstily) over Remus.

Sirius laid awake, his hands stretched out to his sides. His four-poster curtains weren’t drawn, but they weren’t completely open either. He watched the moon ache in the sky and felt it beat in his veins.

There was a pull to the bed opposite him, of course. It was the whole reason he left his curtains parted even though he was scared of what came in the dark. The moonlight was demanding, and it spilled and covered everything he could think of.

The room was silent, thankfully, as James was still out with Lily and Peter had fallen into a fitful sleep in the common room. The pair of them snored louder than a hippogriff gallivanting in the great hall, though they would deny it to the end.

His face was tired and he felt the lines forming underneath his youth. He kept looking, anyways, his eyes burned onto the shut curtains across the room. He knew why they were shut so tight every night. The moonlight threatened everything, he supposed, and his friend was simply threatened more than the average guy.

The aristocratic boy would think of him forever. This he knew, deep in his soul, yet he couldn’t bring himself to speak one word of it. For Remus was a song that was better left unspoken so as not to scare it away. His friend was so gentle, so sweet, and there was an angel in his mind so long as Remus even looked at him.

No, Sirius could not sleep. He wasn’t sure if he ever would again, to be frank, for there was something he ached for so badly that he absolutely had to have. Normally, he would take what he wanted and made quite a show of it, but he knew that this couldn’t be right anymore. Not when it was Remus, not when it was a werewolf with a gentle soul and already had his lines.

He wouldn’t ever forget these nights, not even when he would lay awake and think of his own home, remembering the sounds of his parents arguing. He wouldn’t forget that there were hands laid upon his cheeks, closed fist, not open, and there were burn marks on his clavicles.

They had faded now, but he couldn’t forget the way things looked in the night. Now, the night shone like Remus and he wished that it would fade to inky black once more. It was safe in the darkness, far away from anything at all, and Sirius could hardly breathe when it was so bright. He wouldn’t shut the curtains, though, so he waxed with the moon and never even breathed about Remus.

The night bore into day, of course.

There was a shine across his eyes, blazed by the smile of his curly-haired mate next to him. James was talking animatedly, taking all attention, but Remus still had his.  
Remus always had Sirius’ attention, even when he was just smiling down at the toast he was jamming up. It was always him, even when he had more teeth than normal or put his cold feet on Sirius’ thighs. There was no way out of this, he thought, his hands tracing the place where Remus had held onto him while climbing down onto the bench.  
And, oh, how Sirius drowned in the light. He mumbled incoherently to teachers and turned in essays a foot short on length. Somehow, they understood the darkness that dripped off his eyelashes and he scraped an Acceptable anyways.

There was no way to escape the pain in his chest, and he could hardly even function when Remus sought him out every night. They’d play gobstones or chess, or maybe they’d even lean against each other on the couch while Remus read and Sirius pretended to.

It was always night, though. The inky black hardly touched the light, yet they both meant the same thing, and Sirius antagonized every second of his day. He loved his family that had not loved him back, and after he finished loving them, he began to love a friend that could not, would not love him back either. Perhaps no one would love him and he would be stuck this way forever, he thought, and there would be a nothingness in his belly that he could never fill.

Sirius could hardly look at him anymore. He couldn’t handle the way he shone into his soul, like the moon that he drank up every night, and he was threatening to burst any moment. He hadn’t spoken to Peter in a week and James had taken to caring for him. There was worry in his eyes, and his hands moved slow, and Sirius allowed James to bathe him every night and dress him after.

He was not ashamed of his nakedness, which wasn’t new, and James had seen him naked loads of times. He was different than Remus and things could be different with him. Sirius sobbed into James’ shirt, soaking it with drip marks. James would always act like he had just gotten it wet washing his face.

They never mentioned the way Sirius had slipped and fallen, but they both understood why he had. There was a crippling blackness that accompanied him wherever he went, and James wondered if it was only a matter of time before Sirius was gone forever and there would be nothing left. Sometimes, he wondered if he already had.

However, James Potter did not know why Sirius had fallen into this pit. He assumed it was because he had no actual family left, the kind that you share blood with, but he knew that it had evolved into something greater. He never poked, though, and sat with Sirius every night in silence. He waited for his best friend, his brother, to say something to him, to tell him why, but the explanation never came.

He would often catch him awake in the middle of the night, staring fixatedly at the moon. There were scars on his chest, his arms, his thighs, and he wondered how many of them had been from Mummy and which ones he had done himself. He still never asked.

Peter hardly noticed, of course, as he was always being shifty anyways. The others passed it off as him being nervous about heading off into the real world, as he had voiced multiple times, and did not ask any questions when he disappeared until the early light of day.

Remus pretended like he hadn’t noticed the way Sirius stayed awake at night. He pretended like he couldn’t feel the burn on his neck from how intensely he looked at him. There was no question about Sirius’ feelings, and Remus was afraid.

Remus could hardly think anymore. He only thought of Sirius, who had held his hand after transformations. The mate who fed him chocolate when he was too weak to do anything but sleep, who had been there for everything. Sirius had taught him how to ask a girl out and had said nothing when he told him that maybe he liked boys instead of girls.

It had puzzled Remus, as Sirius always had something to say and then some. He believed it to be homophobia at first. Then, he noticed the way Sirius held him like there was nothing else in the world. The boy was always there, smiling and bumbling about Remus like an overly-large puppy (which he was, he supposed).   
Yes, he had realized long ago the nature of Sirius’ care for him, but he had said nothing. He had been a coward and said nothing to Sirius, nothing about Sirius, and continued to be nothing with Sirius. 

However, Sirius had gone away now, and it hardly seemed appropriate to declare your love for your best mate when he never even looked at you anymore. 

Thus, Sirius sat in silence. He continued to not speak, taking only one meal a day and it was often behind shut curtains. The others wondered if he even ate them. They had begun to wonder about what the deal was, and if they should tell someone. They didn’t know what it was to begin with, but they knew that it couldn’t be good.

James divulged that he bathed Sirius every night. He told them that he could feel his ribs now, and that he cried when the others were sleeping because he couldn’t help him. There was nothing to be done anymore but take care of him until he could care for himself, and that’s just how it was going to be.

Peter was shocked, his eyes wide with terror. What was going to happen to him? He asked this, of course, and the others merely shrugged, their eyes tracing cracks on the walls.

“He’s depressed,” Remus said simply, “Muggle term, really, but it can affect everyone.”

“Well, what’s he depressed for?” Peter had asked, his bitten-down nails scratching at his cheeks in worry. He really was a rat through and through, and the others would find this out in the years to come. 

“Dunno!” James sighed dramatically, glancing over at the shut curtains surrounding the bed one over.

“I think that Sirius loves people too much for his own good,” Remus murmured, “And I think that it’s undoing him to give so much away and get nothing back.”

James understood then. He understood the way Sirius’ eyes were turning purple and his hair was dull and flat against his skull. He knew why his best mate was gone and had been replaced with someone that didn’t feel like him, act like him, or love like him.

Remus understood, too, but he understood more than James did. He said nothing, though, knowing that Sirius had never breathed a word about how he felt to anyone. He knew that the boy was afraid and that there was nothing he could do to change the way that Sirius felt about himself. Things had been so messed around by now, so what could he do about it anyways?

Then, a change came suddenly.

Sirius was so chipper it broke Remus’ heart when he woke in the morning. The dark-haired boy had showered himself, and was wearing the muggle leather jacket that he loved so much. He looked good, fantastic, even, and Remus’ eyes lingered on him the whole day.

Peter was mostly indifferent, though he did give Sirius a clap on the back on their way to breakfast, but James was the most affected. He had hollered and whooped, dragging his brother around with him most of the day, chatting his ear off.

They had seen Sirius laugh that day, so loud it threatened to burst everyone’s ears around him. He mouthed off in class and turned in brilliant work, the way that he used to do.  
James and Peter had thought the storm had passed, to put it quite easily, but Remus knew better. The blackness was not gone; it had simply changed, and it was present in different ways now. He could see it in the way that Sirius still did not sleep, his eyes glued to the open window. The packs of cigarettes Sirius went through, his legs dangling out the dorm window for his sixth cigarette that night.

It took little more than a wrong look to set him off, now, and he often slunk back to the dorm, his cheeks red and knuckles bleeding, but he looked so god damn excited that Remus didn’t think to tell him to slow down.

Sirius was not sure what to think about his new attitude, but he was grateful for the sudden energy that had taken him.

He still ached after Moony so bad that it was tearing apart his ribcage. His pining was so obvious that he knew that Remus had an inkling about the true nature of his feelings, but he hardly cared anymore.

He was out on the roof, sat with a cigarette burning out in his lips and another already being lit between his fingers.

Remus clambered out beside him and was greeted merrily, ignoring the longing look Sirius was giving him. They didn’t speak a word, and Remus had lit a joint sometime inbetween their silence. Sirius still said nothing even though he always asked for a puff when Remus lit up.

“Y’alright, mate?” 

Sirius was not sure why Remus had broken the silence, but he was kind of glad that he had. The black-haired boy simply shrugged and continued smoking, looking out at the stars above him. Remus allowed it to be silent for a while more before he spoke again.

“Why don’t you talk about it?”

“What do you mean?” Sirius glanced at him, then, and could hardly believe that Remus was already looking at him so intently it could rip him apart.

“You’re not any better,” Remus took Sirius’ cigarette then, done with his own activity, and took a long drag from it.

“Don’t smoke that shit, Moony, it’s right bad for you.”

“You do it so often I’m surprised you haven’t dropped dead.”

“Maybe that’s what I’m trying to do, yeah?”

Naturally, the silence came again. Sirius lit up another fag and leaned back onto his elbow, shutting his eyes gently and enjoying the cool air. Remus was practically buzzing, the blood in his body turning so loudly he could hear it.

Of course, he knew the nature of his friend’s blackness, but Remus never supposed that Sirius would outright admit it, especially in such a casual way. It made sense, really, that someone as dramatic as him would be able to be so laid back about how they felt about their life. 

Then again, he wasn’t really sure if it was him being laid back or him already accepting what was inevitably coming like a train that had forgotten to brake.

“Well, I think you should quit, is all,” Remus finally sighed, stubbing his cigarette against the roof and then snuffing out his friend’s as well.

He shrugged once more and they helped each other up. They stood there, their feet sliding a little on the slick tiles, but they still did not speak. Remus was much taller than him, but Sirius had such a large presence that he may as well have been looking eye-to-eye with the boy.

Sirius finally understood what had him so entranced with Moony, ever since he had encountered him on the train with his glasses slipping off the end of his nose. He was okay with silence. Sirius spoke quite a lot, and there were times where he never really did stop making noise, but what he desperately craved in his life was for everyone to just shut the fuck up.

Fortunately, he had found this in Remus, who lazily read books and rubbed Sirius’ back even if he hadn’t asked. He was all soft sweaters and hardly ever wore shoes, which meant he wouldn’t make noise even if he walked around. In fact, he hardly made noise doing anything, even if his task was to wake the Queen of England. 

Sirius loved Remus, and this he knew, and there wasn’t anything about it that he could change. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to change it.

Remus was not sure why Sirius was looking at him so funnily, but he figured it must be important. So, he stayed silent and let him look at the scars on his face and the stubble that he had missed while he shaved. He let him look and tried not to feel self-conscious about it. He didn’t realize that this is why Sirius loved him.

Without saying another word, Sirius climbed back through the window and by the time Remus had entered the room as well, the curtains were drawn around him.

Maybe this game would last forever, Remus thought. They would just dance around each other, laying everything out without really saying anything at all. It burned him from the inside out, the way that Sirius looked at him, and he knew that the other boy loved him. He knew that Sirius would do anything for him. He never said a damn thing, yet he knew that he was begging for Remus’ attention in the silence that followed them around.

He lay awake that night, so restless that he could hardly get comfortable. He wished he knew how he felt about Sirius, but he wasn’t so sure if he was.

I mean, he was beautiful, of course, in this ruggedly ethereal sort of way that made no sense at all but was distinctly Sirius. There were all the times he took care of him, as well, he couldn’t forget that. Most of all, he couldn’t make sense of the way his heart caught in his throat every time Sirius gave him that look that he did. It didn’t really make any sense at all, the way he felt about Sirius, for it felt so unnatural that he cringed away from it.

He knew what it was and what it meant, but Remus didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t want to admit it at all, especially when he returned home and his mother grunted every time the telly said “homosexual.” He couldn’t forget the way his father blocked Remus’ eyes when two women were holding hands in public even though he was 15 years old. There was no mistaking the way that people felt about people like Remus, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to add it to his list once and for all.

He was already a mistake, his father told him one night after he had caught Remus out with a boy from town. They hadn’t been doing anything, really, just standing a little closely outside the cinema on a dark summer night. His father had rolled up, his face red and his hands clutched tight on the steering wheel. He was always an awful driver, as he had no license and the car was his Mum’s anyways, but he had driven home that night and almost crashed into three mailboxes.

No poof business in this house, Remus thought bitterly, or there would be no home to come home to. He understood quite clearly, to be frank, and it rattled his very bones that his father had taken one look at Remus and saw him. He felt raw around him, and the tall boy could hardly breathe for fear of being called something much worse than a poof.  
He didn’t want to admit it. He really didn’t want to come and sit his mates down. He didn’t want to explain to Peter that yes, he could still have sex and no, James, no one turned me off birds. Remus simply did not like them, that much was obvious, but he didn’t want to have to say it at any rate.

So, Remus sat in silence. He turned his feelings away and cried alone at night, his tears tangling with his curly hair. The others never said anything when he awoke in the morning, his face swollen and red. He appreciated it.

Sirius couldn’t bear it any longer. He knew he was spilling over, and he felt quite mad. With a wicked smile, he slipped out of his bed and tiptoed over to Moony’s. He tugged on the curtains and Remus opened them, his face a little puffy but otherwise seemed normal.

“Lemme in?”

It wasn’t really a question, but it sounded like one anyways. Remus complied, shutting the curtains behind Sirius and casting a silencing charm. He wasn’t really sure what he wanted, but he wanted to be able to talk in peace without Peter walking up and listening in.

“I can’t talk about it because I’m afraid of what it means. I’m afraid of what it’s doing to me and what I’ll do if I know that I really can’t have it.”

“What do you mean can’t have it?” Remus asked, lying side-by-side with his raven-haired friend. Sirius’ hair was spilling out in all directions, tickling Remus’ temple, but he made no effort to move it. He thought that if he moved too quickly, Sirius would realize what he was doing and would stop talking.

“I think you know, Moony,” Sirius said, his fingers lacing together nervously.

“Well, I didn’t want to assume anything that was untrue,” Remus whispered, his voice barely audible, “Though I suspected.”

“You always did know me before I knew myself, didn’t you?”

“I’m afraid so.”

The silence came again and both knew that breaking it would mean crossing a line. Neither of the boys were sure if they wanted to cross this line even though both of them ached like the moon every second longer that nothing changed.

“Moony?”

“Yes, Sirius?”

“Are you afraid, too?”

Remus was silent, of course, but Sirius knew what the silence meant. It was hard to accept what had really transpired between the two boys over the course of the year, but both knew that he must accept it or it would eat him alive.

Sirius was close to him in an instant, his button nose touching Remus’ rather pointy one. He was looking at him again, the way he always did, but something had shifted behind him. Remus realized that it was fear, so apparent that he could taste it in his mouth.

“Yes or no, Remus?”

“If you want to kiss me, then just do it.”

“I’ll only do it if you’re ready. I asked if you were afraid, are you?”

Remus studied his face for a moment more, so pale and smooth. He could see Sirius, but he realized with a jolt that Sirius could not see him and was waiting nervously in the dark for his response.

“Yes, Sirius, I’m very afraid.”

The admission freed him somewhat, and he pressed his mouth against Sirius’ almost regretfully, his hands flailing about for a moment before settling on his face.  
Sirius was smiling against him, holding Remus tighter than he had ever held anything in his entire life.

Remus was his whole world already, this much all the boys knew, but Sirius had never quite realized what this really meant for him before now. Not when he wasn’t able to taste Moony in his mouth, not when he couldn’t feel the way his heart was beating so quickly in his chest he was positive that it was hurting the werewolf.

They kissed for many moments longer, their hands straying about shoulders and faces and tangling in hair. It wasn’t like it was a heated snog in a broom cupboard, but Remus had never felt so hot before. He could hardly get a handle on himself when they broke apart, his chest heaving wildly. 

“We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

Remus briefly realized that Sirius had laid beside him once more, and he looked sullenly at the curtains around him.

“Yes, Padfoot, we are.”

James and Peter knew nothing of this encounter, of course, and the quartet continued as if nothing had happened. Truthfully, the dynamic between Sirius and Remus had not really shifted; they just snogged now, and Remus realized that he and Sirius already had been acting like boyfriends without either of them truly knowing it.

Sirius’ energy had reached such a high point that it was simply hazardous. There were many times where he and James would return from quidditch practice, muddy and bruised and quite tired. James would shower most nights, but sometimes he would be so tired he fell right asleep in his dirty uniform. Sirius began to return with more and more energy, which was not lost on his tired roommates.

Peter would tell him to chill out from where he had sunk into his cushy bed, and James was too tired to even ask what was going on with him. Remus was the only one who really noticed it, to be honest, and he regarded Sirius’ mania as another crack in his already cracked interior.

He noticed the scars at night, like mountains on otherwise perfect skin. Remus traced them quietly, saying nothing while saying everything all at once. Sirius couldn’t slow down, and he paced the room twenty times a night before he could even think about sitting down. Even then, he’d launch into work and quidditch strategies with such fervor that he had even started to outdo Remus in classes.

It was a vicious cycle, really, the way that he straggled between being nothing and being everything. Sirius still waned and waxed, just like the moon, and Remus found it ironic that he loved the very thing that he was running away from.

Sirius was headed towards death, this he knew deep in his heart. He didn’t want to admit it and often tried to refuse that it was happening, but he saw it in the way that Sirius shook and stayed up all hours of the night working on something new he thought of moments before.

They’d embrace when no one was looking, both too afraid to come out to even their closest mates, and they whispered promises to each other in the light of day when they could see their faces.

Remus figured that he would be following Sirius for the rest of his life. He had drawn him in and now Remus was trapped in the life that Sirius was barely living. He felt too guilty to say it was too much, and accepted the burdens that came with loving Sirius eagerly. He really did love him, too, and he knew that no matter the cost, he would always be there whether Sirius never spoke or spoke too much.

Sirius had not smoked since the night on the roof, and Remus said nothing about it.

Remus had started sleeping with the curtains open on one side, letting moonlight spill onto his bed. Sirius clambered in every night, on the open side, and cuddled into an already-sleeping Remus. He knew it was for him. Remus knew that Sirius needed to see the moon, he needed to see what it could offer him, no matter the fright that he got when he saw it. Sirius said nothing about it, but he tried to convey his appreciation any way he could.

Sirius still ached, of course, but it was in a new way. He had what he so desperately craved and could hardly believe the way Remus leaned into him in public, his eyes twinkling and his mouth curved wryly.

He knew the darkness would come, and maybe tomorrow he would feel nothing. Perhaps he would spend a month in Remus’ bed this time, feeling nothing more than the blankets around him. They figured that they couldn’t tell anyone about them, and it stabbed Sirius so hard that he thought he might bleed out from it.

He held Remus’ hand that night, sleep never coming. They certainly were fucked, he thought, and maybe they would be able to tell the lads about them soon. James snorted a little in his sleep, and Sirius smiled for a moment before brushing Remus’ hair off his forehead. Maybe the morning after they could speak about it, but for now he said nothing and held his lover’s hand. Silence meant more than the words spoken between it, at any rate.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, man.


End file.
